Targeting Birth Tourism: US Visa Enforcement Is Disrupting Chinese Agency Networks

The U.S. has launched a global crackdown on visa fraud targeting the lucrative birth tourism industry, which was once particularly popular in Chinese markets.

Mary Man

Published: 8/26/2026, 2:02:17 PM EDT

Targeting Birth Tourism: US Visa Enforcement Is Disrupting Chinese Agency Networks — A group of women hold babies gathering at a residential area in Beijing on Sept. 16, 2014. (Wang Zhao/AFP via Getty Images)

The U.S. government is collaborating with institutions around the globe to curb visa fraud tied to "birth tourism," having already revoked hundreds of visas.

Birth tourism refers to pregnant women who are neither U.S. citizens nor permanent residents traveling to the United States under the guise of tourism, sightseeing, or business (such as on B-1/B-2 visas) to give birth.

Once children are born in the United States, they automatically become U.S. citizens—gaining access to U.S. passports, educational resources, and welfare systems, along with the legal right to sponsor their parents for U.S. immigration upon turning 21—these infants are sometimes referred to as "anchor babies."

State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott told Fox News Digital, "We have consular officers around the world that work with international partners, that work for law enforcement officials to identify patterns that indicate a birth tourism network, and then when that is identified, we take actions such as revoking their visas, which was the recent announcement that we made, to make sure that we're dismantling those networks."

In early August, Chinese social media was flooded with posts about pregnant women being denied entry at U.S. customs, causing anxiety among many Chinese couples planning to have children in the United States.

Ethnic Chinese—particularly families from China and parts of Taiwan and Hong Kong—were once a core clientele and driver of this industry.

Starting in the 2000s, this practice gradually evolved within Chinese communities into a mature, transnational commercial enterprise.

The Wall Street Journal reported in 2017 that Saipan, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean, had become a popular destination for birth tourism among some Chinese parents. At the time, it was the only U.S. territory Chinese citizens could visit without a visa.

As Chinese tourist arrivals grew year by year, the number of babies born to Chinese mothers on the island surged from just 8 in 2009 to 472 in 2016—a figure that exceeded the number of births by local American women on the island that year.

Pigott mentioned several examples of such fraud, pointing to deceptive marketing campaigns by these birth tourism networks.

He said that some organizations advertised "a world without borders" and guaranteed automatic citizenship under the guise of providing legitimate health care services. According to Pigott, this constitutes clear fraud that extends far beyond simply lying to consular officers.

Furthermore, he explained that these U.S.-based networks actively coach clients on how to evade their medical costs, ultimately leaving American taxpayers to cover the bill.

"It comes down to the fundamental principle: we're gonna protect the sacred privilege of American citizenship and not allow this fraud to happen," Pigott said.

On Aug. 12, the State Department announced the creation of a task force aimed at eradicating birth tourism, designed to more effectively implement the executive order on birthright citizenship signed by President Donald Trump and to protect the meaning and value of U.S. citizenship.

"We're making adjustments because it's very unfair," Trump said. "They're building businesses around birthright citizenship. That's not the way it was supposed to work. It's a disgrace. They're buying their way in, and we're not going to let it happen."

Another executive order signed by Trump last week stipulates that children born in the United States to parents who are neither U.S. citizens nor permanent residents, or where at least one parent is an employee of a foreign government or a member of a foreign terrorist organization, cannot automatically obtain U.S. citizenship.

However, the executive order faces legal challenges. In June of this year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a previous birthright citizenship restriction issued by the Trump administration.

There is currently no precise official data on how many pregnant women travel to the United States each year to give birth and obtain U.S. status.

Data registered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that in 2024, the number of births by foreign residents in the United States was approximately 9,500, accounting for about 0.26 percent of total U.S. births that year.